(
2016-12)
de Keijzer, Jeroen; Kieft, Henk; Ketelaar, Tijs; Goshima, Gohta; Janson, Marcel E.
Different from animal cells that divide by constriction of the cortex inwards, cells
of land plants divide by initiating a new cell wall segment from their centre. For
this, a disk-shaped, membrane-enclosed precursor termed the cell plate is
formed that radially expands towards the parental cell wall. The synthesis
of the plate starts with the fusion of vesicles into a tubulo-vesicular network. Vesicles are putatively delivered to the division plane by transport along
microtubules of the bipolar phragmoplast network that guides plate assembly. How vesicle immobilisation and fusion are then locally triggered is
unclear. In general, a framework for how the cytoskeleton spatially defines cell
plate formation is lacking. Here we show that membranous material for cell plate
formation initially accumulates along regions of microtubule overlap in the
phragmoplast of the moss Physcomitrella patens. Kinesin-4 mediated shortening
of these overlaps at the onset of cytokinesis proved to be required to spatially
confine membrane accumulation. Without shortening, the wider cell plate
membrane depositions evolved into cell walls that were thick and irregularly
shaped. Phragmoplast assembly thus provides a regular lattice of short overlaps
on which a new cell wall segment can be scaffolded. Since similar patterns of
overlaps form in central spindles of animal cells, involving the activity of
orthologous proteins, we anticipate that our results will help uncover
universal features underlying membrane-cytoskeleton coordination during
cytokinesis.